As mentioned in the
General conditions, the Partner should provide sufficiently detailed information in the final reports in order to allow DG ECHO to formulate an opinion on the eligibility of costs. An indication of the level of information to be provided can be found in the section
"Minimum information to be provided". Not all sections will apply to all types of Actions.
The costs to be identified are classified by chapters: personnel, equipment, major or large amounts of supplies (or consumables), contracts, and communication/visibility costs. Each chapter will contain the financial information provided by the Partner's financial reporting tools.
Additional information can be provided by the Partner to justify the eligibility of the costs to complement the information provided by the standard reporting tools. In that case, it is strongly advised to use explicit cross references to ease the reading and interpretation of the reports. It is important to provide coherent information and to avoid discrepancies.
Just like the final narrative report (which is based on the Single Form), the final financial report will cover all actual costs of the Action, regardless of the source of the funds and the percentage of DG ECHO contribution.
Information reported in the narrative report does not have to be repeated in the financial report. However, the two reports should be complementary and coherent.
The final financial report must be consistent with the records, accounts and ledgers of the Humanitarian Organisation and its implementing partner(s)
In the tables and lists provided with the Final Financial report, costs should be expressed in the clearest terms in order to be understandable and traceable. Vague and/or generic terms (e.g. vehicles) should be avoided. The Partner should try to be as specific as possible in the description of the different categories and/or items of costs. (E.g. four wheel drive, truck, motorcycle, etc)
The level of details required by DG ECHO to carry out its analysis of eligibility of expenses at liquidation stage is presented in the section
"Minimum information to be provided". For some categories of costs, the guidelines indicate a threshold which will be used by DG ECHO when analysing the eligibility of expenses at liquidation stage (
liquidation threshold). Liquidation threshold means that generic information on the type of costs should always be provided, but no additional information would be requested for costs below these thresholds. DG ECHO will only verify expenses above these thresholds. (Partner should remember that at the time of audit more detailed information may be requested by auditors on all costs and not only on costs above these thresholds)
For
multidonor actions, higher thresholds are defined and bilateral agreements with the concerned partner could be made to ease the use of standard reporting and avoid extensive reporting.
DG ECHO Finance and Legal Unit is always available for bilateral discussions with Partners to define the best and easiest way of providing the requested information.
When the information provided in the reports above the mentioned thresholds is considered insufficient to verify the eligibility of the costs, a request for complementary information, which suspends the applicable deadline, will be sent to the Partner.
Should DG ECHO need more detailed information to identify some costs, it shall request the Humanitarian Organisation to submit this additional information within 30 calendar days. After that period, DG ECHO may in case of no reply either reject the final reports as submitted or continue the procedure on the basis of the available information.
In case DG ECHO has problems in understanding the format used to report the costs, which is based on the Partners' financial system, DG ECHO may ask the Humanitarian Organisation to provide explanations on the provided tables and information.
In case DG ECHO asks for copies, no certified copy is needed for this report, however original or certified copies could be requested during audits.
If the Humanitarian Organisation wishes to report on in-kind contributions, these should be explained in
Section 4.3.2 of the Single Form. In case these contributions are mentioned in the final financial report, it has to be
without any financial amount or estimation in terms of costs.
The explanations and contextual information must be provided in the language of the Agreement (Article 10.4 of the General Conditions).
When the headings of the tables copied from the internal reporting are written in another language than the one of the agreement, a translation in the language of the agreement should be provided. This can be done globally in an annex of the final financial report or per heading, as it suits best the Partner and the readability of the report.
In case of local languages, no systematic translation of supporting documents (purchase orders, procurement procedures, etc) is needed, but a lack of translation of the key parts could be seen as a major internal control weakness as this could lead to a lack of supervision at HQ level and could lead to possible subsequent audits. Translation costs are considered as eligible costs; DG ECHO will not ask for certified translations.
References and useful links: